International Development CommitteeSupplementary written evidence submitted by The Department for International Development (DFID)

Official Development Assistance

Official Development Assistance (ODA) refers to flows of funds to countries and territories on the OECD Development Assistance Committee List of official development assistance recipients (available at www.oecd.org/dac/stats/daclist) and to multilateral development institutions, which are provided by official agencies (including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies) and each transaction of which is:

administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of countries on the OECD Development Assistance Committee list of official development assistance recipients as its main objective; and

concessional in character and conveys a grant element of at least 25% (calculated at a rate of discount of 10%).

ODA is based on flows of funds and flows can only be recorded once. If DFID provides funding to HMRC to deliver technical assistance to developing countries, DFID will assess whether the funding meets the ODA definition and, if so, will include the funds in its report of total ODA. It would not be recorded as ODA by HMRC.

If DFID were to provide funding to a partner government and that government were then to use those funds to engage HMRC to provide services, the provision of the services by HMRC would not count as ODA, but the original provision of the funds by DFID would count as ODA (if the ODA conditions were met).

If HMRC were to receive funding from other development agencies in order to provide services to developing countries, we would expect that the funding would be reported as ODA by those agencies (if it met the ODA criteria), but would not be reported as ODA by HMRC (to avoid double counting).

Where HMRC provides assistance to developing countries from its own resources, that could count as ODA if the criteria for ODA eligibility are met. However, most assistance provided by HMRC to help build capacity in developing countries is funded by others.

DFID prepares the statistics for UK ODA, including ODA provided through other government departments. Over the last three years, these statistics have not included any ODA provided by HMRC, although UK ODA includes an amount of Gift Aid which is deemed to be ODA eligible and Gift Aid is administered by HMRC.

June 2012